I was at one of those stores where you have to have a membership card to get in. The store will remain nameless, but you have to pay $35 a year or so to get into the store to then buy their items, which are said to be a great deal. Now you really still need to check what you are buying because not everything is a great deal. But we have a membership so we shop there.
Not too long ago I was buying some stuff and the guy checking me out of the store said, “Have you heard about our newest way to save you money?” I said, “no” trying to show as little interest as possible, but he began his pitch. They have just started a new program for only their best members. If I wanted to upgrade my membership I would start to save even more money. With this upgrade the computer would start to track my purchases. It would notice what kinds of items I tend to buy or what brands of products I use. Then they would send me special offers on those items when they were in stock. So, for a small additional fee I could save more money.
You all have heard that kind of a pitch before right? For just a few more dollars here and there, in the long run you will save more than that. Now these deals usually sound pretty good. And by doing some math you could really check it out and see what you would need to do in order to get your money’s worth. And they often make it sound easy enough. But here is what always comes to my mind; if this is going to save me money isn’t that going to lose money for the company? Companies do not often function if they are not making money. Their bottom line is to make money. The only reason they would offer a deal like this is because it makes them money. Now it may be that they have found or are hoping that people buy the upgrade, but do not fully take advantage of it. If someone pays the extra money, but never really use the benefits then the company has made a profit.
It is kind of like I heard Dave Ramsey ripping on extended warrantees. He said not to buy them. The reason everyone offers them to you is because they make so much money from them. Instead of paying for the extended warrantees on cars, tvs, computers, all that stuff just put aside half the amount you would have paid for the warrantees and if any of the things break you can fix it with what you have saved by not buying warrantees.
So, I decided not to get it.
My point here is to carefully consider the offers that you get. In many cases when an offer comes your way and it sounds too good to be true, what? It probably is too good to be true. But there are some offers that seem too good to be true, but they are for real.
Let’s look at what facebook has to offer you. This is a webpage for you about you. How much would you pay for something like that? $19.95? $9.95 a month? Let’s go to www.facebook.com. If you wanted to become a member of facebook you would notice it says there it’s free. It says it’s free and always will be. There are no membership requirements or anything. If you want to have a facebook page you can. Matter of fact you could have several if you wanted to.
This phrase actually used to say It’s free and anyone can join. You see there was a rumor message going around facebook that starting on a certain date you would have to pay for a membership to facebook. I believe the date was like July 15, just ten days ago. When I first saw that message I was a little concerned because I was already planning this message series and this sermon. I was worried because if facebook was not free I would not be on it. It is nice to stay in contact with people and it is fun, but I am not sure I would pay a monthly fee to do it. So, if I stopped using facebook then my messages would have had to change. But I also knew that sometimes people like to make things up and try to worry people for some reason. I am not sure why some people don’t have better things to do with their time then make up rumors to worry people.
So facebook is free and always will be. The same is true about our faith. Ephesians 2:8 reminds that “it is by grace you have been saved, through faith. Not of your own works lest anyone should boast.” Our salvation is free, it is a gift from God. There is nothing you can do to earn it. You can’t do anything to deserve it. It is simply a gift. That is it.
This past week I received some things I did not really deserve. I got cards in the mail and gifts. I had many posts on my facebook page and many people sang songs to me. It was my birthday and we kind of feel we deserve gifts that day, but what did we really do to earn those gifts? I mean I was born, but my mom did most of the work.
In the same way, God has a gift for you. He wants to give you the gift of a relationship with him. It is kind of like a spiritual birthday. The gift is waiting and God wants to give it to you.
Sometimes we have a hard time accepting a gift that is undeserved. I used to decline gifts when someone wanted to offer me something. Whether that gift was an object or if someone wanted to do something for me I would tell them I would be fine and I could do it myself. After a while I began to realize I needed to be willing to receive the gifts given to me. And that is a key to a relationship with God. We have to recognize that we need to receive the gift God has for us. Too many times we want the gift on our terms and we are full of pride. When we need to humble ourselves and receive what God has for us. God freely wants to give you a full life.
Salvation is free. It really is the greatest offer ever given. And it is given out of God’s love for us. And it is not given because we are good enough because we will never be good enough to receive that gift.
That is why I liked the old saying on facebook better. Instead of “It’s free and always will be,” I like “It’s free and anyone can join.” Our salvation is free, but we also need to remember that anyone can join. There are no prerequisites to being a part of the Christian community.
I know our minds sometimes tell us that there are certain things we should do before coming to God. We may feel like we need to get our life in order just to go to church, but I believe the church is here to help all of us find direction in our lives. It does not matter how far along you are in finding that direction, anyone can join. We have people in our church who have been growing in their Christian faith for years, most of their lives. They still need the direction Christ can give. And we have others in our church who may still not be sure what direction God might have for their lives. And that is the way it is supposed to be. You belong in God’s family. You belong.
Now belonging to a group can mean different things. For one it could me you are similar to the other parts. If I were dividing fruits I would say that similar fruits belong together. So if I had a bunch of apples and oranges. I would say all the apples belong together and the oranges belong together. They belong together because they are similar.
This is not the kind of belonging I am talking about when I say you belong to the family of God. I was thinking that since we are talking about facebook that a book might describe how we belong together. A book is one thing, but it is a collection of many different things. To tell the story in this book it takes many pages. Each page has different words or pictures on it all used to tell the story of the book. If every page was the same with the same words, that would be a pretty boring book.
This is what it means for you to belong to the family of God. It is not that you have to be like everyone else, you should be different, be your real self. And it is the differences that we bring that make us belong together. Each different page is needed to truly communicate the story.
There is a full story to tell. However, there are times we do not fully participate in our belonging, we do not share our full part of the story. As a church we have a vision to be a church where you can SEE Christ. This means that each of us will allow Christ to be seen living in us. And we believe Christ lives in us through the SEE idea, S-E-E, serve, experience, embrace. Each of us are called to belong as we serve, experience, and embrace Christ.
So when you decide you do not belong in service for Christ (rip out a page) a page is missing from the story. Everyone here can serve Christ in some way, any way. If you are not serving think about what you love to do and then do it for Christ.
Again, when you decide you do not belong in an experience with Christ in a small group (rip out another page), another page goes missing. We all belong in small groups. Small groups are where God will teach us and touch us. It is where we can really remember our belonging to this community. And I have had several people tell me they are not really “small group people.” Small groups just do not work for them. What I am guessing they mean is that they have had a bad experience with a small group. They tried it and it did not work or they are expecting something to happen in the small group that they do not want to happen. So really it is not the small group itself, but some aspect of it. Because really we are all small group people. Do you have a family? That is a small group. Do you have friends? Again, a small group. We belong in community. I would love to start a small group for people who don’t like small groups. We could begin the group by setting the parameters for the group stating what we don’t want to the group to be and stating what we want it to be. We all belong in a small group so that we can experience Christ, otherwise a page is missing.
The second in E in SEE is for embrace and that is worship and prayer together. If you think you do not need to participate in prayer and worship (rip another page) a page is missing. God calls all of us to come together for worship and prayer. Through worship and prayer we open our arms to embrace Christ. Without it we are missing a piece of the story.
Facebook is free, it always will be and anyone can join. God also has great things to offer you. I know at times it does feel too good to be true, but it is true. God offers you a free relationship with him and there is nothing you need to do or even can do to deserve it. And God wants to offer you great things as you live out your belonging in ministry and connection in the body of Christ.
